No longer will we have to guess how many iPod touches Apple has sold—the company has revealed the device's sales figures for the first time in evidence submitted for its ongoing Apple v. Samsung trial (hat tip to All Things D for the full chart). Apple has sold 46.5 million iPod touch units in the US between the device's introduction in 2007 and the second quarter of 2012. (That's in addition to the nearly 86 million iPhones and 34 million iPads sold during that time.)

While Apple has always been happy to brag about its iPhone and iPad sales numbers, it has been coy about the iPod touch. Apple has said that more than 50 percent of overall iPod sales are from the iPod touch, but it has not previously broken the numbers down. The iPod touch's sales numbers are of particular interest because the overall iPod brand has been seeing sales declines every quarter since mid-2009. Sure, "old" style iPods are certainly on the way out, but the iPod touch is more like an iPhone lite, leading to a lot of curiosity about how well the device sells.

Samsung, by comparison, revealed that it has sold 21.25 million smartphones in the US between June 2010 and June 2012, along with 1.4 million tablets. (Keep in mind that the smartphone number only included devices at issue in the trial, not Samsung's full lineup.) But even when you only look at Apple's data from those same quarters, the differences are stark—the company sold almost 63 million iPhones, 34 million iPads, and 25.3 million iPod touches during the same period. Even the weakest link of the iOS family—the iPod touch—is selling faster than a large chunk of Samsung's portfolio.

Samsung has a stronger position over Apple when it comes to global sales of its devices, but it's clear the company has a ways to go if it wants to catch up on phone and tablet sales here in the US. Earlier this week, Samsung submitted evidence to the court that showed 9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad, with another 10 percent returning their tablets because they didn't like the usability of the OS (Honeycomb).

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

Samsung has a stronger position over Apple when it comes to global sales of its devices

You may want to take notice that the link only discusses smartphones, while your article is talking about smartphones, tablets and whatever the iPod touch is classified as. Still think Samsung has a stronger position?

Quote:

Samsung submitted evidence to the court that showed 9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad, with another 10 percent returning their tablets because they didn't like the usability of the OS (Honeycomb).

That sentence is full of fail. According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad.. etc. See the difference?

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

Indeed, the only confusion that seems to exist is amongst the extremely technologically deficient who seem to think that apple's trademarked devices are generic terms for all tablets, portable digital music players, and smartphones in the same way many people refer to facial tissues as Kleenex or internet searches as "Googling".

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

I suppose consumers were confused 21.25 million times.

And not confused 122.3 million times.

Or not It depends on where they went shopping, how much assistance they needed from the floor sales person, or what they asked for. If they went to a Verizon store before the iPhone was available, how much do you want to bet that the sales person said that the Samsung was "just like an iPhone"?

"the company has a ways to go if it wants to catch up", what dreadful English.Try "the company has a way to go, if it wants to catch up" or even "the company has a long way to go, if it wants to catch up".

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

Indeed, the only confusion that seems to exist is amongst the extremely technologically deficient who seem to think that apple's trademarked devices are generic terms for all tablets, portable digital music players, and smartphones in the same way many people refer to facial tissues as Kleenex or internet searches as "Googling".

I can understand a tablet or even an mp3 player, but how technologically deficient does one have to be to call every smart phone an IPhone?

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

Indeed, the only confusion that seems to exist is amongst the extremely technologically deficient who seem to think that apple's trademarked devices are generic terms for all tablets, portable digital music players, and smartphones in the same way many people refer to facial tissues as Kleenex or internet searches as "Googling".

Conveniently, it's those same customers that the law seeks to protect.

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

Indeed, the only confusion that seems to exist is amongst the extremely technologically deficient who seem to think that apple's trademarked devices are generic terms for all tablets, portable digital music players, and smartphones in the same way many people refer to facial tissues as Kleenex or internet searches as "Googling".

Conveniently, it's those same customers that the law seeks to protect.

Last I checked you can still buy photocopy machines made by companies other than Xerox that for all significant purposes are virtually indistinguishable from them in every way except for the logo. Same for facial tissues.

Samsung has a stronger position over Apple when it comes to global sales of its devices

You may want to take notice that the link only discusses smartphones, while your article is talking about smartphones, tablets and whatever the iPod touch is classified as. Still think Samsung has a stronger position?

Quote:

Samsung submitted evidence to the court that showed 9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad, with another 10 percent returning their tablets because they didn't like the usability of the OS (Honeycomb).

That sentence is full of fail. According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad.. etc. See the difference?

I would argue that the sentence as written is more appropriate. "9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad" is simply stating a fact and letting us, the readers, decide if that's a lot or a little. I think it's appropriate journalism because it's not telling the reader what to conclude, whereas your edit "According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad" you are telling the reader how to interpret what 9 percent means.

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

Indeed, the only confusion that seems to exist is amongst the extremely technologically deficient who seem to think that apple's trademarked devices are generic terms for all tablets, portable digital music players, and smartphones in the same way many people refer to facial tissues as Kleenex or internet searches as "Googling".

I can understand a tablet or even an mp3 player, but how technologically deficient does one have to be to call every smart phone an IPhone?

Slightly off discussion but I think they likely make up a signficiant portion of the population, although I certainly have no idea how many there are.

Just this weekend I was in a coffee shop and two women who I'd superficially describe as "buisness women in their 40's" sat down at a table, one pulled out a Blackbery (not even a slilde out model, the full hardware keyboard easily visible) and the other lady said "oh, is that one of those iPhones?". I'm guessing a lot of people think "fancy cellphone = iPhone".

Heck, I just bought a 7" Android tablet and I'm willing to bet $5 that the next time I'm visiting my folks they'll ask "is that an iPad?"

This certainly goes a way to explaining the disparity I see between Android’s market share claims and actual app/web usage on my projects. With the majority of my work being US focused/based iOS dominance makes a lot more sense.

This certainly goes a way to explaining the disparity I see between Android’s market share claims and actual app/web usage on my projects. With the majority of my work being US focused/based iOS dominance makes a lot more sense.

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

Indeed, the only confusion that seems to exist is amongst the extremely technologically deficient who seem to think that apple's trademarked devices are generic terms for all tablets, portable digital music players, and smartphones in the same way many people refer to facial tissues as Kleenex or internet searches as "Googling".

I can understand a tablet or even an mp3 player, but how technologically deficient does one have to be to call every smart phone an IPhone?

Or every facial tissue a Kleenex? Or every self adhesive bandage a Band-Aid? Or a lil' sticky square of paper a Post-it?

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

Indeed, the only confusion that seems to exist is amongst the extremely technologically deficient who seem to think that apple's trademarked devices are generic terms for all tablets, portable digital music players, and smartphones in the same way many people refer to facial tissues as Kleenex or internet searches as "Googling".

I can understand a tablet or even an mp3 player, but how technologically deficient does one have to be to call every smart phone an IPhone?

I've actually heard someone call their blackberry phone an "iPhone." I think it's like "kleenex". A lot of people in the U.S. don't ask for a tissue to blow their nose but a "kleenex," regardless of which brand they buy.

Samsung has a stronger position over Apple when it comes to global sales of its devices

You may want to take notice that the link only discusses smartphones, while your article is talking about smartphones, tablets and whatever the iPod touch is classified as. Still think Samsung has a stronger position?

Quote:

Samsung submitted evidence to the court that showed 9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad, with another 10 percent returning their tablets because they didn't like the usability of the OS (Honeycomb).

That sentence is full of fail. According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad.. etc. See the difference?

I would argue that the sentence as written is more appropriate. "9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad" is simply stating a fact and letting us, the readers, decide if that's a lot or a little. I think it's appropriate journalism because it's not telling the reader what to conclude, whereas your edit "According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad" you are telling the reader how to interpret what 9 percent means.

What? No, the two sentences mean fundamentally different things.

If 1,000 people buy a Galaxy Tab and 9% of them return it for an iPad, then 90 people swapped a Galaxy Tab for an iPad.

If 1,000 people buy a Galaxy Tab, 100 of them return it, and 9% of the people who returned it did so because they bought an iPad, then 9 people swapped a Galaxy Tab for an iPad.

I don't know which of those statements is correct in this case, but it's not a matter of telling people how to interpret, it's a matter of stating very different facts.

I would argue that the sentence as written is more appropriate. "9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad" is simply stating a fact and letting us, the readers, decide if that's a lot or a little. I think it's appropriate journalism because it's not telling the reader what to conclude, whereas your edit "According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad" you are telling the reader how to interpret what 9 percent means.

It's bad grammar. Basically the sentence reads that 9% of Galaxy Tab owners returned their device (which is not what asserted). Either way, it's just another data point that goes against Apple.

Samsung has a stronger position over Apple when it comes to global sales of its devices

You may want to take notice that the link only discusses smartphones, while your article is talking about smartphones, tablets and whatever the iPod touch is classified as. Still think Samsung has a stronger position?

Quote:

Samsung submitted evidence to the court that showed 9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad, with another 10 percent returning their tablets because they didn't like the usability of the OS (Honeycomb).

That sentence is full of fail. According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad.. etc. See the difference?

I would argue that the sentence as written is more appropriate. "9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad" is simply stating a fact and letting us, the readers, decide if that's a lot or a little. I think it's appropriate journalism because it's not telling the reader what to conclude, whereas your edit "According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad" you are telling the reader how to interpret what 9 percent means.

I believe you misunderstand. The article reads that 9% of all Galaxy tab buyers return their tab in favour of an ipad. What Scud says is that 9% of the Galaxy tab returns are customers buying an ipad instead. If return rate is 10%, that means that 0.9% of Galaxy tab buyers return their tab in favour of an ipad.

Samsung, by comparison, revealed that it has sold 21.25 million smartphones in the US between June 2010 and June 2012, along with 1.4 million tablets.

Wow, that's much, much lower than the analysts were estimating for tablets. For more than a year we've been hearing how Apple has been losing market share steadily in the tablet market, even before the Kindle Fire shipped. And Samsung has only sold 1.4 million tablets in the U.S. in that entire period!

Most of Samsung's smartphones are in that list, so except for the few Win Phone phones it sells, and the Bada line, which aren't exactly smartphones, this is the majority of their sales here. It strikes me that the sales aren't as high as estimates from organizations that guess at it. Even assuming that Samsung sold 25 million smartphones here during that two year period, that's a pretty small number. If we assume that most of those sales are from the past year, it's still a small number. It comes to just 12.5 million phones a year, on average. That's just 3.125 million phones a quarter. Even if we give them more for the past year, it would indicate that those 40 to 50 million phones worldwide per quarter are severely out of whack. About 20% of the worlds smartphones are sold in the US at this point in time, and it was higher as we go back in time.

It's much worse for tablets. They hardly seem to be selling any at all. Again, most of their models are covered here. 30 something thousand in the last quarter! It just isn't possible that they sold 95% of them outside of the US.

Now I see why Samsung refuses to give quarterly numbers for smartphone and tablet sales. They are much poorer than expected.

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

Indeed, the only confusion that seems to exist is amongst the extremely technologically deficient who seem to think that apple's trademarked devices are generic terms for all tablets, portable digital music players, and smartphones in the same way many people refer to facial tissues as Kleenex or internet searches as "Googling".

Conveniently, it's those same customers that the law seeks to protect.

If that's what this is really about then the judge can just dismiss the case and send everyone home early.

Quote from jackstrop: "Last I checked you can still buy photocopy machines made by companies other than Xerox that for all significant purposes are virtually indistinguishable from them in every way except for the logo. Same for facial tissues.

What was the point you're trying to make, again?"

Why hasn't Samsung made this point? The same thing can be said about Refrigerators, Stoves, Washing Machines and many other commodity goods including cars. Why is Apple so damn special?

It's much worse for tablets. They hardly seem to be selling any at all. Again, most of their models are covered here

ugh. you have a knack for reading things incorrectly then making even goofier assumptions based on that.

If you go to Samsungs US product page for their tablets, you will see they offer 11 different models (dear god). How many of those products/models are referenced in the court document? 0

0 != most of their models (except maybe to you)

I've leave it up to you to do your own research on the reported smartphones (hint: it's no where near the majority)

Put it another way; if Samsung wasn't selling, Apple wouldn't be suing (unless you think Apple to be an extremely incompetent company). Simple as that.

Most of those "models" are the same models with differing amounts of Flash. They don't have that many different models.

There is no way that Samsung is going to present false figures in court here either. And no matter how you want to look at it 37,000 tablets in the quarter are worse than miserable. And don't forget that just a few months ago Samsung said that their tablets were selli g "poorly". Their words,not mine.

Most of those "models" are the same models with differing amounts of Flash. They don't have that many different models.

Of course they do. Look at the court document if you need further proof. They break down each model of the same phone based on carrier. No matter how you want to categorize it, NONE of the tablets in the document are currently on the Samsung product page. 0. Unless you think Samsung presented false evidence to the court, you are wrong on this.

Quote:

And no matter how you want to look at it 37,000 tablets in the quarter are worse than miserable.

Considering those are for tablets that Samsung no longer lists for sale (I'm not even sure how one could purchase them), I'd say it was decent (though it would not surprise me if the iPad 1 still out sold them).

Quote:

And don't forget that just a few months ago Samsung said that their tablets were selli g "poorly". Their words,not mine.

and? 2.3m last quarter is poorly when your competitor about triple that. My rebuttal is not about Samsung selling good or bad, it's about you making up facts and presenting them as truth. It's a nasty habit you seem to have.

Wouldn't this hurt Apple's case a little? A jury might infer people were NOT as confused as Apple is claiming between its and Samsung's devices.

I suppose consumers were confused 21.25 million times.

And not confused 122.3 million times.

Or not It depends on where they went shopping, how much assistance they needed from the floor sales person, or what they asked for. If they went to a Verizon store before the iPhone was available, how much do you want to bet that the sales person said that the Samsung was "just like an iPhone"?

Caveat emptor. In most aspects from a purely naive consumer perspective (read: not Ars readers) Android phones are just like iPhones. Both are contained within a class of touchscreen "smart phones" and as far as functionality is concerned, there is very little difference, as the functionality of both are a series of reactions to consumer desires. By objective, non-expert consumer standards, there wouldn't be significant difference between a Windows 7 and an Ubuntu laptop if someone had never used a computer since DOS. The sales person example you give doesn't even cross the low watermark for sales ethics. The sales person could even demonstrate that you can get a lot of the "iPhone" games like Angry Birds and Bejewled, have an app store, a browser, e-books, stream music, SMS, etcetera and still be operating correctly and ethically. The issue would only be if they said you can get ALL of the Apple App Store apps or claim iTunes integration.

This would be like saying consumers who bought Chevy Volts got scammed because they thought they were buying a Prius at the GM dealership. It is entirely laughable.

"the company has a ways to go if it wants to catch up", what dreadful English.Try "the company has a way to go, if it wants to catch up" or even "the company has a long way to go, if it wants to catch up".

Standards my dear Ars, standards!

Grammatical and style standards would dictate, "if the company wants to catch up, it has a long way to go." Such phrasing is more clear and easier to read. Then again, the entire article was slapped together rather shoddily and with the cardinal sin, misstated facts.

Samsung has a stronger position over Apple when it comes to global sales of its devices

You may want to take notice that the link only discusses smartphones, while your article is talking about smartphones, tablets and whatever the iPod touch is classified as. Still think Samsung has a stronger position?

Quote:

Samsung submitted evidence to the court that showed 9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad, with another 10 percent returning their tablets because they didn't like the usability of the OS (Honeycomb).

That sentence is full of fail. According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad.. etc. See the difference?

I would argue that the sentence as written is more appropriate. "9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad" is simply stating a fact and letting us, the readers, decide if that's a lot or a little. I think it's appropriate journalism because it's not telling the reader what to conclude, whereas your edit "According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad" you are telling the reader how to interpret what 9 percent means.

What? No, the two sentences mean fundamentally different things.

If 1,000 people buy a Galaxy Tab and 9% of them return it for an iPad, then 90 people swapped a Galaxy Tab for an iPad.

If 1,000 people buy a Galaxy Tab, 100 of them return it, and 9% of the people who returned it did so because they bought an iPad, then 9 people swapped a Galaxy Tab for an iPad.

I don't know which of those statements is correct in this case, but it's not a matter of telling people how to interpret, it's a matter of stating very different facts.

Wow I can't believe something as fundamental as this hasn't been fixed. So much fail ars

Samsung submitted evidence to the court that showed 9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad, with another 10 percent returning their tablets because they didn't like the usability of the OS (Honeycomb).

That sentence is full of fail. According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad.. etc. See the difference?

I know people have already pointed this out, but thank you for highlighting this sentence, it is very misleading.

I would argue that such a figure is pretty much useless anyway. Without knowing the background behind many of the purchases, without knowing how much Best Buy represents in terms of overall sales of the Tab and without knowing the reasons behind the exchange there is very little that you can infer from a 9% exchange rate.

For example: Person A buys gift for Person B, Person B wants an iPad, not a Tab and returns it with the receipt. Another example: Person A buys a Tab, doesn't like it and exchanges it for an iPad, doesn't say that it was because he didn't like it.

In fact, the only data point that would be relevant is how many people are exchanging Tab's for iPads because that's what they thought they were buying.

Congrats Jacqui, you presented a misleading conclusion for a useless survey and didn't even link to a rundown of the survey or mention a possible future article about it. I'm not normally one to blast writers, but this is particularly bad case of poor journalism. It reeks of "hah, take that Samsung" from typical Apple fans. I am obviously ok with an Apple slant in "Infinite Loop", but showing figures from a 5 year period and then figures for a 2 year period and saying, with obvious glee, that the "weakest member of the iOS family" is out-selling most of Samsung's catalogue is terrible. A fair comparison is to show the figures for the same period, it would also be more fair to note that the iPod is not a smartphone and therefore few direct links can be made. Oh and the iPod touch predates the "smartphone revolution", so early figures could make a significant difference (i.e. if 35% of those sales are in 2007, then it shows that as the popularity of the iPhone et al. took off, the iPod fell off the radar).

I think we all knew already Apple was the Goliath in this trial Jacqui ;-)

But if you want to turn it into a p###ing contest, compare sales in a period (as a percentage of the total that's "market share" for the confused among you - you know who you are) of Android phones compared to iPhones.

I would argue that the sentence as written is more appropriate. "9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad" is simply stating a fact and letting us, the readers, decide if that's a lot or a little. I think it's appropriate journalism because it's not telling the reader what to conclude, whereas your edit "According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad" you are telling the reader how to interpret what 9 percent means.

What can I say the iPod Touch is a great unique device. I've bought the 64GB version and the Nano. Until other companies step up on PMPs, I'll continue buying Apple.

++ and the sales figures give a bit more fairh in the continued existence of the 'iTouch' (and my holding off replacing my slowing 3g model).I'd just prefer they spent their advertising expenses on marketing people, not on legal parasites ...

Apple has sold 46.5 million iPod touch units in the US between the device's introduction in 2007 and the second quarter of 2012. (That's in addition to the nearly 86 million iPhones and 34 million iPads sold during that time.)

...

Samsung, by comparison, revealed that it has sold 21.25 million smartphones in the US between June 2010 and June 2012, along with 1.4 million tablets. (Keep in mind that the smartphone number only included devices at issue in the trial, not Samsung's full lineup.) But even when you only look at Apple's data from those same quarters, the differences are stark—the company sold almost 63 million iPhones, 34 million iPads, and 25.3 million iPod touches during the same period. Even the weakest link of the iOS family—the iPod touch—is selling faster than a large chunk of Samsung's portfolio.

The conclusion drawn here contradicts the statistics that the article gave. It appears the author ignored the fact that different time frames were given for the sales of Samsung vs Apple devices.

Samsung has a stronger position over Apple when it comes to global sales of its devices

You may want to take notice that the link only discusses smartphones, while your article is talking about smartphones, tablets and whatever the iPod touch is classified as. Still think Samsung has a stronger position?

Quote:

Samsung submitted evidence to the court that showed 9 percent of Galaxy Tab buyers were returning their devices in exchange for an iPad, with another 10 percent returning their tablets because they didn't like the usability of the OS (Honeycomb).

That sentence is full of fail. According to a Best Buy survey, of the people returning the Galaxy Tab only 9% was due to purchasing an iPad.. etc. See the difference?

Is that from the 13% return rate that was reported?

Edit: Come to think of it: That report says that that 9% of those who returned their Samsung Tabs got an iPad instead on the spot. It does not say how many returned the Tabs and then took their money and got an iPad at a place that didn't talk them into getting a "Samsung Pad" in the first place.